


A Pretty Girl

by cupcake54



Category: The Children's Hour
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:17:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupcake54/pseuds/cupcake54





	A Pretty Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marycontraire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marycontraire/gifts).



To my dearest Karen,

I forgot to tell you – I did the bills and we’re ninety dollars ahead this month! You need some new clothes, so I got you this.

M

 

Karen lifted the note from the bed, and smiled at Martha’s small, loopy handwriting. She turned the brown paper package over, and undid the string, which was tied in a careful bow.

The dress was lovely; cream, with a collar, and a thin belt at the waist. She fingered the little black buttons that ran from the collar to the waist, and realised it reminded her of one she’d had when she was at college – she wasn’t sure what had happened to it. Quietly, she closed the door and drew the curtains. She took off her cardigan and undressed, then stepped into the dress and pulled it up over her body. She zipped up the back, and looked at herself in the mirror. It fit perfectly; but of course it did, Martha was always thoughtful, and they’d been best friends for a long time now - Martha knew her almost better than she knew herself, and she never forgot the little things. She smiled to herself, thinking of what a lot of fun it had been at college, all the dancing, parties, admirers...

***

Martha was trying to do the accounts, but all she could hear was “Je voudrais une glace, s’il vous plaît...” She loved to listen to Karen speaking French. She sounded so sophisticated, even if she was only asking for an ice cream, a glass of lemonade, a cup of tea... She took off her thick glasses and twiddled them absentmindedly. No, she really must get on with these accounts. She’d added one figure to the neat column – “J’ai une soeur...” Damn, this wouldn’t do. She threw down her pen in frustration at her total inability to concentrate and ran upstairs to their bedroom. She sat on the bed, then stood up restlessly and opened the wardrobe door. She took out the package and laid it out on the bed.

She supposed that Karen didn’t even remember – why would she? The first time she saw her, running so gracefully across the quadrangle with her shiny dark hair streaming out behind her. She’d never seen a girl run that gracefully. It was a cream dress, with little back buttons down the front, and she was wearing a cream ribbon in her hair. What a pretty girl, she’d thought, standing there in her plain brown skirt and white blouse. And from then on she couldn’t take her eyes off her, even though she barely knew her. Gradually, they got into the same friendship group, became closer; they were roommates in senior year. After dances Karen would breathlessly relate the happenings and gossip of the night while slipping out of one dress or another, and Martha would just watch her, only half listening.

The pale skin of her back as she pulled the dress over her head, the slight curve of her waist that she wanted to trace. She didn’t think Karen ever noticed. But it was the cream dress, that first time, the one that tore on the corner of a table one night, too badly to repair.

She’d known what to do with part of the money straight away. A pretty girl like Karen, well, she needed to be kept up, and she’d always looked beautiful in that dress in college. She got a blank slip of paper from the bureau, and sat at the desk trying to think what to write.

***

Karen was washing up, a strand of hair escaping from her neat bun by her left ear, while Martha was sitting at the kitchen table mending the hem of a skirt.

“Let’s leave this till the morning. We’re tired, we should relax.”  
“Well, all right then.”

Karen put the plate she had just washed on the draining board, pulled out the plug and undid her apron, as if she was somewhere else entirely. Martha longed to tuck that dark strand behind her ear.

Karen walked up the stairs in a dreamy fashion. She was no doubt thinking of cots and bootees and married life, thought Martha, and then immediately reproached herself for being angry. She was her friend; she wanted the best for her. It was only natural, anyway, and she wanted her to be happy. She was always somewhere else in her head these days.

Karen began to undress, her back to her friend, and then sat at the dressing table in her nightdress and began to remove the pins from her bun.

“Here, let me do that. I’ll brush it for you.” Karen turned to smile at her, in that way she had when she knew she’d been won over.  
“Oh, if you insist!”

Martha’s careful fingers took out the pins one by one, and put them in a neat pile on the dresser, and her hair, released, fell down her back. As she began to brush it, as gently as she could so as not to hurt her, for the first time that day Karen began to relax, the straight posture of her back softening, and she closed her eyes. Martha’s touch reminded her of home, when she was a little girl and her mother used to sit her down and brush her hair, a hundred strokes every evening. It made her feel safe.

“Such lovely hair”, said Martha softly. She didn’t want to stop brushing it, wanted to keep looking after Karen for ever, keeping the school - their little school - baking for her, ironing her blouses... She stroked the soft, dark hair, and then her fingers moved to the delicate skin of her neck. Karen’s eyes remained closed, a half-smile of pleasure on her face, as Martha began to cry.

She would iron his shirts.

***

Karen stopped on the stairs and listened to Martha humming to herself in the kitchen. It was good to hear her sounding happy; she’d been so stressed recently, ever since she’d told her that she’d be getting married to Joe soon. She listened for a bit longer, pushed an escaping pin back into her bun and continued down the stairs.

She breathed in the smell of baking before she entered the kitchen. She walked through the half-closed door quietly, and laid a hand on Martha’s shoulder.

Martha jumped and stopped humming abruptly, unable to speak.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump. You’re up early; the girls don’t need to be woken for another half hour or so.”  
“Woke up – couldn’t get back to sleep. I was just - ” she managed.

Karen drew back and looked at her dear friend, her blouse dusted with flour, with a small spot of cake mixture on her flushed cheek, and couldn’t help lightly kissing her there.

“It smells lovely.”

At that moment Karen felt overwhelmingly happy, there in their little school, in the quiet morning with their girls still asleep, with the smell of cake, and Martha baking in their kitchen. That they’d done it seemed too good to be true.

The school was Martha’s idea; it was about the only thing that seemed to excite her in their final year, and she loved to make plans, to dream about their future. They used to talk about it for hours into the night. How they would call it the Wright-Dobie school, how they’d share a room with two of everything, with a dressing table, how they’d divide up the chores. The girls they’d have there, and how it’d be like a kind of family.

Martha looked at her sadly, imagined her greeting Joe with a kiss at the door of their house, the children on their father’s knee. Imagined their room, that cream dress hanging next to his shirts.


End file.
